Translating dialect in slave narratives: the case of "The Good Lord Bird"

Abstract

This paper deals with the translation into Spanish of James McBride’s third novel, The Good Lord Bird, and lays out a translation proposal. In order to obtain a text in the target language that reproduces the source’s linguistic variation and its connotations, the strategies for translating literary dialect and its social and ideological implications are considered, specifically in the case of Black English and slave narratives. Translation scholars’ views are also taken into account when it comes to translating dialect, together with certain examples of the Spanish renderings of some of the novels that belong to this particular genre.

Keywords

• black english
• traducción del dialecto
• james mcbride
• narraciones de esclavos
• "the good lord bird"
• traducción literaria